Health Care

She thinks the Ryan plan for turning Medicare into a voucher program is good—but doesn't go far enough. "I voted for it with an asterisk with further reforms in mind," it says.

2/

The Debt Ceiling

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Bachmann claims President Obama is using "scare tactics" as leverage in the negotiations over raising the debt ceiling.

"Until I see a legitimate, serious reduction in spending, I can't give my vote" to raise the debt ceiling, she told CBS' Early Show yesterday.

She has endorsed Senator Pat Toomey's proposal that the U.S. should pay only the interest on the debt while leaving the principal untouched. That plan is very popular among Tea Party supporters, though the Republican congressional leadership has not endorsed it.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner have said that this plan would diminish the United States' borrowing reputation in international markets.

3/

Afghanistan

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Bachmann supports staying the course in Afghanistan. "We have to win southern Afghanistan, then we have to go on and win eastern Afghanistan," she told the Weekly Standard. "I believe that we will be victorious, and we'll end it."

Bachmann opposes President Obama's proposed withdrawal of 10,000 troops this year and 23,000 next year.

"Announced deadlines for withdrawing forces from any battle enables the enemy to simply wait until we leave to reconstitute itself," Bachmann said.

In May, however, Bachmann expressed uneasiness about the Afghan mission.

"I want to reduce U.S. exposure in Afghanistan," she told CNN. "Let's get them out as quickly as we can."

4/

Libya

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Bachmann holds a more "realist" position on the Libya conflict, saying she would not have intervened in the conflict.

"First of all, we were not attacked. We were not threatened with attack," she said during the June 13 New Hampshire debate. "There was no vital national interest."

She also opposes assisting the Libyan rebels, arguing that their ranks have been infiltrated by al-Qaeda fighters.

Cutting Federal Government

She claims that the private sector could handle all the work of those three cabinet agencies.

Bachmann's proposed abolition of the Department of Education is informed by her advocacy of home-schooling before she entered politics. She is actively pursuing the support of the powerful home-schooling community in Iowa, appearing with Herman Cain and Ron Paul at the Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators in March.

The Commerce Department runs the U.S. Census, which Bachmann has famously claimed she refuses to fill out—despite federal law mandating that every person over 18 do so, under penalty of a $5,000 fine.

6/

Financial Crisis

Bachmann voted against both the TARP financial bailout in 2008 and the auto bailout in 2009, and favors repealing the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill.

In October 2008, she blamed the still-unfolding financial crisis on government "hyper-regulation." This is a view not shared by many.

7/

Immigration

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Bachmann supports sealing the U.S. border with Mexico and enforcing current immigration laws.

She voted in 2007 to make English the official language of the United States.

8/

Minimum Wage

In a speech to the Minnesota legislature in 2005, Bachmann advocated for eliminating the minimum wage.

"Literally, if we took away the minimum wage—if conceivably it was gone—we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level," she said.

In an interview with George Stephanopoulos this week, Bachmann evaded three separate questions related to the subject.

Here is a portion of their exchange:

Stephanopoulos: Let me try one more time, so you are saying that the minimum wage is one of those regulations you'd take a look at, you'd try to eliminate it?

Bachmann: Well what I'm saying is that I think we need to look at all regulations, whatever--whatever ones are inhibiting job growth that's what we need to --

Stephanopoulos: And the minimum wage is one of them?

Bachmann: All regulations George. I think every department. We have just too much expansion of government and so what we need to do is tamp that down so that the American people can keep more of what they make.

9/

Gay Marriage

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Bachmann's stance on gay marriage is confusing, to say the least.

"I do support a constitutional amendment on marriage between a man and a woman," Bachmann told New Hampshire voters during the June 13 debate. "But I would not be going into the states to overturn their state law."

That is exactly what a constitutional amendment would do.

Two weeks later, when Fox News' Chris Wallace pressed her on this issue, Bachmann said that the two positions are not inconsistent because it is both the states' rights to decide on the issue, and the federal government's right to seek a constitutional amendment overruling the states. She re-affirmed that as president she would push for a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as strictly between a man and a woman.

10/

Abortion

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Despite the generally fiscal focus of the Tea Party, Bachmann is positioning herself as the pro-life candidate for 2012

She is opposed to both abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, and supports extending to the unborn the rights of personhood afforded by the 14th Amendment.

She has criticized her rival Mitt Romney for not yet signing a pledge to nominate only abortion opponents to judicial and cabinet posts, to defund Planned Parenthood, and pass a bill banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.